Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 17. (Budapest, 1998)
Andrea VÁRFALVI - Tamás Károly PELLER: The Restoration of a 17th Century' Hungarian Saddle
The surface of the canvas base, soiled and changed in colour from dark to light blue, was full of holes. The quilting, fastening stitches had come undone, and in some places were missing. On the parchment covering, which had become impregnated with fine dust from rubble, traces of biological damage had mottled the surface, especially on the outer part of the rear pommel, where on the lobe, along the pommel edge, destruction had been wrought. In a number of places the parchment was split. The splits could presumably have occurred as a result of the weakening of the frame and movement stemming from this. The piece missing from the rear pommel was in line with the infection of the wood. The croup-strap under the parchment between the two pommels had become deformed and crumpled. The leather lining the saddle-boards was soiled, shabby and covered with various stains. It had shrunk, dried out and become hard. In some places the surface had peeled off. The stitching holding it together had in many places split or had disintegrated. In addition to the stitching, the leather had also torn in a number of places. The red colour of the torn border along the edges of the lining had become brown. The incomplete surface was covered with holes. The yarn strengthening the border was in a number of places torn, adrift or missing. The insect-eaten leather lining under the seat was crumpled up; on one side a corner was strongly pushed in. The incomplete leather straps facilitating the fastening of the croup strap had become hard and deformed. When it emerged from the ground, the art work was in a state similar to that of an archaeological find. Its structure was weakened, and cleaning, strengthening and supplementation were necessary. Because the conservation of different organic and inorganic materials was called for. the saddle had to be dismantled. The textile, leather and wooden parts were restored by Andrea Várfalvi, and the metal ornamentation by Tamás Károly Peller. During the course of the dismantling, after the removal of the metallic ornamentation and the straps and the iron rings at the bottom of the saddle-boards, the textile lined with leather was taken off the frame (Ills. 5 & 6). Next came the undoing of the border fastening the lining and the fabric to one another. The hard parchment covering could be lifted dry from the wooden parts (111. 7), as a result of which the frame's two pommels - along with the croup-strap between them , the pommel-fist and the two saddle-boards came apart. (111. 8). After the coating of the decorative stones with beeswax, the corrosion covered silvergilt pommel sheeting and pommel-fist were cleaned with Argentol and the turquoises with surface-active Germanol PH7 cleaning agent. After the smoothing out of the metal, the missing turquoises were replaced with new ones in accordance with the original technique. Analysis of the materials used to embed them did not yield clear conclusions, with the result that a new material was made from beeswax and from resin (this last to give the appropriate hardness) for the embedding of the replacement stones. So that the two embedding materials (the old and the new) could be told apart later, they were not mixed together and the new stones were marked with a cross chiselled on the bottom. After the silver nails strengthening the sheeting had been cleaned with Argentol, 1 ' 1 the bent ones were hammered straight. To replace the missing nails, new ones were made from silver, in such a way that their heads were the same shape as those of the original ones. Below the heads, however, the shafts were shaped differently to the originals, enabling them to be distinguished from them later on.
